the word made flesh, day 7

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

Opening Prayer:
Almighty God, who came to us long ago in the birth of Jesus Christ, be born in us anew today by the power of your Holy Spirit.  We offer our lives as home to you and ask for grace and strength to live as your faithful, joyful children always.  Through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen. (A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants)

Psalm for the Week: Psalm 85

Scripture for the Day: Isaiah 53:1-12

Reading for Reflection:

After this, four hundred years of silence.  God doesn’t call and when we do he won’t answer the phone.  You can almost imagine him nursing his wounds, wondering where it all went wrong.  And then an idea comes to him.  Here is Kierkegaard’s version of the story:

 

Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden.  The king was like no other king.  Every statesman trembled before his power.  No one dared breathe a word against him, for he had the strength to crush all opponents.  And yet this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden.  How could he declare his love for her?  In an odd sort of way, his kindness tied his hands.  If he brought her into the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist- no one dared resist him.  But would she love him?

She would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly?  Or would she live with him in fear, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind?  Would she be happy at his side?  How could he know?  If he rode to her forest cottage in his royal carriage, with an armed escort waving bright banners, that too would overwhelm her.  He did not want a cringing subject.  He wanted a lover, an equal.  He wanted her to forget that he was a king and she a humble maiden and to let shared love cross the gulf between them.  For it is only in love that the unequal can be made equal. (as quoted in Disappointment with God)

     The king clothes himself as a beggar and renounces his throne in order to win her hand.  The Incarnation, the life and the death of Jesus, answers once and for all the question, “What is God’s heart toward me?”  This is why Paul says in Romans 5, “Look here, at the Cross.  Here is the demonstration of God’s heart.  At the point of our deepest betrayal, when we had run our farthest from him and gotten so lost in the woods we could never find our way home, God came and died to rescue us.”  We don’t have to wait for the Incarnation to see God as a character in the story and learn something of his motives.  But after the Incarnation there can be no doubt.  (The Sacred Romance by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge)

 

 

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

Song for the Week: Come Thou Long Expected Jesus

Come, thou long expected Jesus,
born to set our people free;
From our fears and sins release us;
let us find our rest in thee.
Israel’s strength and consolation,
hope of all the earth thou art;
Dear desire of every nation,
joy of every longing heart.
 
Born thy people to deliver,
born a child and yet a King,
Born to reign in us forever,
now thy gracious kingdom bring.
By thine own eternal spirit
rule in all our hearts alone,
By thine all sufficient merit,
raise us to thy glorious throne.

Closing Prayer:
Come, Lord Jesus!
     You are my righteousness.  You are my goodness, the cause and the reason for goodness.  You are my life and the light of life.  You are my love and all my loving.  You are the most noble language I can ever utter, my words and all their meaning, my wisdom, my truth, and the better part of myself.  Amen. (Preparing for Jesus by Walter Wangerin Jr.)